NDP calls on Liberals to detail impact of COVID aid on benefits to seniors, families

OTTAWA —
The New Democrats are calling on the federal government to provide a full accounting of how much Canadians have lost in benefits after they relied on emergency financial aid last year.

In a letter to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, the NDP critic on the file notes that federal officials in the spring looked into which families would lose the most in benefits this year.

Daniel Blaikie says his party wants to know why the Liberals didn’t give a clear warning about the impacts when officials first became aware of the possibility.

The reason for the decline in benefits is that the government counted the Canada Emergency Response Benefit and its successor, the Canada Recovery Benefit, as income for the purposes of calculating benefit amounts.

As incomes rose, benefit values dropped.

Blaikie is asking the government to make public how many people have seen their benefit payments reduced, and how much they have lost.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 19, 2021.